Bird Profile: Star Finch

The Star finch (Neochmia ruficauda) is one of the Estrildid species of finch that is found across the dry grassland and savannah in Australia.  It is sometimes known as the Red-faced Finch but mostly as the Star Finch in aviculture.

In the wild, these little finches are Near Threatened due to loss of habitat.  This is because of the removal of the grassland they need to survive, overgrazing by castle and their food and water sources disappearing.  Burning of grasslands during the dry season is another major problem as this reduces the amount of seeds that can germinate in the wet season and leaves the birds with less supply food.  However, despite their struggle in the wild, they are relatively common in captivity, a fact that may prove crucial if their decline continues.

Eye catchers

Male bird (left) and two females

In my opinion, Star Finches in all their mutations are real eye catchers.  The wild form is a bright red face and beak, green breast with white spots, green across the back and wings and a yellow belly.  The top of the tail features light red feathers then green along the length.  This means that they stand out even in a well-planted aviary.

Since being bred in captivity, the Star Finch has also developed some beautiful mutations to the original wild colour.  One of the most common of these is the Yellow mutation.  This is where the red face is replaced by dark yellow and the tale is golden yellow while the back is an olive green with an almost golden tint.  It is a recessive inheritance (see Finch Genetics) but still seems to come out strongly amongst mixed nests.

Other mutations include the Fawn and Cinnamon, which are similar enough to cause confusion.  In both cases, the body colour become lighter while the head colour retains its brightness.  The cinnamon variation tends to have a yellowish hue to the back and wing feathers and the upper tail colour is a distinctive pink, rather than normal red.

With all mutations of the birds, they can generally be sexed visually as the male’s face colour will stretch further back than that of the hen – see above picture where the bird on the left is the cock bird and the other two are hens.

Breeding Star Finches

Star Finches have a reputation as being difficult to breed but a lot of this comes from what they have been raised with themselves.  As a general rule, they don’t tolerate nest inspections and will abandon the nest or even chicks if they are interfered with.  However, this isn’t an absolute as I know a breeder who checks the nests at least daily or whenever else he feels like it and produces any amount of young successfully.  It is worth noting though, he always has Bengalese finches running the same breeding schedule as the Stars just in case.

Enthusiastic male's nesting building efforts

For the actually breeding process, Star Finches are relatively average finches.  The male will build a nest, which can be quite elaborate and use a lot of material to what is actually needed and then will display to the hen with a piece of nesting material.  This involved singing and bouncing up and down on a perch in front of her, his head lowered a bit, offering her the nesting material.  The pair will then finish building the nest together and both birds take turns in incubating the eggs.

The normal clutch is 4-5 eggs that are incubated for 12-13 days.  When the young hatch both parents will feed them and they fledge at around three weeks of age.  They will be parent fed for another two or three weeks but it can take around six months to get their full adult plumage – before that they are a dull beige and white colour and are almost unrecognisable as a Star Finch!

Most experienced breeders recommend waiting to breed the birds until they are around twelve months old, as by this time they are mentally more able to deal with the breeding process and are less likely to abandon the nest.

Options for keeping Stars

Again, this depends a lot on how they have been bred so if they are used to living in a breeding cage, then this won’t be an issue for them.  But if they have been raised in an aviary flight, they may find it frightening to be constricted into a cage.  I have six Stars in my flight with a host of other finches, canaries, British birds and a few parakeets without any problem.  They are proving slow to go to nest but this is due to having not had them together for that long. 

These little birds mix well with others so could be kept in a good-sized indoor aviary cage if you wanted them in the house.  They can be a little susceptible to cold temperatures, due to the delicate feathering, so if living outside, protection is advisable.

Star Finches are generally busy little birds who often hang around in a little group along with Cherry Finches who they are closely related to (watch out for the chance of cross breeding!).  Their song is a typical finch song, vaguely mechanical but very pleasant and the males are enthusiastic little singers.  They will often have singing competitions with each other but there is no aggression involved.

Feeding Star Finches is simple enough – a good Foreign Finch mix will do the job and they enjoy a host of other seeds occasionally.  I have given them sunflower hearts, hemp, paddy rice, Niger seed, blue maw and linseed as treat seeds, all of which have been taken, along with egg food and bird grit.  I have recently been providing mini mealworms for some of the more insectivores finches but have noticed the Stars will have a few as well.

Difficulty level

If you are keeping them for the pleasure and are happy if they breed but not worried if they don’t, they are relatively easy to keep.  If you are planning to breed, a little more care and caution is involved, making them more difficult.  However, their overall personality means that they are uncomplicated to keep with others and feeding them is easy.